


11:54pm

by rexisnotyourwriter



Series: Before the Flood [10]
Category: Broadchurch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 11:50:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5333072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rexisnotyourwriter/pseuds/rexisnotyourwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Alec Hardy spends his daughter's birthday (post divorce).</p>
            </blockquote>





	11:54pm

To everyone else it’s just another day, but not to him. He never lets on though; it’s like a little secret he carries. If it falls on a weekday, he spends his day at work as usual, sometimes a bit distracted with thoughts of her. What was she doing, was she at school, did her friends remember, did they sing to her in class, did she think of him, was she happy?

If it falls on a weekend he would go out for breakfast or brunch, depending on when he woke up. He tried staying home a couple times, but it drove him mad just watching the time and checking his phone. He needed a distraction, at least for a while.

When he gets home, or in the late afternoon, he goes into his closet and gets the box down from the top shelf and places it on the floor. He spreads out the brightly coloured contents and arranges them in order. First are the crayon and marker scribbles on construction paper. On the backs of them he had written down what she said they were of so he wouldn’t forget. He didn’t have to look anymore though; he had memorized what they were. The green, yellow, and red scribbles were the park they would go to on Saturdays. The brown and red scribbles were their house. The mostly green one with a bit of black and red was Mom. Sometimes he would slide that one underneath the rest. Sometimes he would stare at it longer than he should.

Next came the school pictures and family portraits. His favourite was one of the three of them, stick bodies and smiling faces. The capital D in “Dad” was written backwards. He remembered when she brought that one home. She was upset because one of the boys in her class had told her she had got it wrong. He knelt down, dried her tears with his thumb, lifted her on to his knee, and told her he thought it looked better that way anyways. She smiled.

Sometimes he would read through all of the Father’s Day cards, noticing how her spelling and writing had improved over the years. She wrote more and more in the cards as she got older, until it peaked and the words became less and less hers and more and more the pre-written and cliched ones that belonged to Hallmark.

Sometimes he couldn’t.

He would scoop them up gently and place them back in the box and back on the top shelf.

He would make himself dinner, something he rarely did. He made a point to cook on this day though. He tried to make it something healthy, either rice or noodles with chicken and as many vegetables as he could stand. He tried to take care of himself.

He gets her a book every year. That was their thing, books. The subject would change every year along with her tastes. One year it was a book about horses, another it was a book on how to learn Latin. Last year he had gotten her a beautiful miniature collection of Jane Austen books.

He waits until at least 7:30pm before trying to pass on his wishes and see if she had gotten his present. Sometimes she answered. Sometimes it went to voicemail. She’d always call back though if it did, usually at the most inopportune times so she’d end up getting his voicemail in return. Sometimes they’d play phone tag, but usually he would try her one more time and if she didn’t answer he would leave a voicemail saying that he got her voicemail and she could call him again if she wanted. Sometimes she did. Sometimes she didn’t.

He stays up until 11:54pm, the time she was born, and says “Happy Birthday, darling” to an empty room. 


End file.
